MANILA, Philippines ? Several months after they received a tongue-lashing from the Senate, local telecommunications networks are still struggling with ?vanishing load? and ?text spam? problems.

Data from the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) showed that consumer complaints on losing unused prepaid credits and spam messages more than doubled in November over that of the previous month.

The NTC said there were 195 complaints that were either phoned in, sent via e-mail or submitted personally by consumers regarding vanishing load.

Meanwhile, complaints on spam messages on mobile phones reached 117, bringing the total number of complaints to 312.

This is almost a 142-percent increase over the 129 complaints made in October.

About 72 percent of complaints lodged in November were from prepaid subscribers of Smart Communications Inc., most of which involved ?vanishing load.?

In May last year, the regulator and telecommunications companies endured a storm of criticism from senators and consumer rights advocates after Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile claimed that unused load from his prepaid account had vanished.

The Senate?s committee on trade and industry, chaired by Senator Manuel Roxas II, spearheaded the investigation into consumer complaints, prompting the regulator to prepare a set of other rules that would clamp down on the activities of third-party ?value-added service? firms that send unsolicited text messages to mobile phone owners.

Most of the ?vanishing load? problems were traced to the sending of unsolicited ?spam? messages, which forced subscribers to unwittingly avail and pay for services such as ring tones and other forms of content stored in mobile phones.

The regulator also issued a circular, which lengthened the validity period of prepaid credits.

The NTC said it had told local telecommunications firms to address the complaints as soon as possible.

According to Ramon Isberto, Smart Communications Inc. public affairs head, the company has yet to receive the NTC?s report on the complaints.

?But if action is warranted, then we will do something about it,? he said.

There are over 70 million mobile phone subscribers in the Philippines, 90 percent of whom have prepaid accounts.